Once Dave Steck moved from Manhattan to Yonkers a decade ago, he began to miss the film culture found in the heart of New York City.
“Sometimes, as expats are want to do, they lament the things they miss from the place they left,” Steck said. “I may have said something like, ”˜Boy, I miss being able to see foreign films or art films.”™”
Steck endeavored to recreate the film environment of Manhattan in Yonkers by co-founding Yonkers Film Festival ”” more commonly known as the YoFi Fest ”” in 2013 with video editor Patty Schumann. Now in its tenth year, the nonprofit YoFi Fest kicked off its latest incarnation on Dec. 2 and will continue until Dec. 11, with movies being showcased at the YoFi Digital Media Art Center and the Riverfront Library”™s atrium theater, both within walking distance of the Yonkers train station.
The YoFi team seeks to present film to audiences in various forms, including documentaries, music videos and student films. This year”™s opening night differed from YoFi”™s traditional strategy of starting off with a feature-length film, instead showcasing short films whose running times ranged from about four minutes to a little over 30 minutes.
The opening night selection included “Inside the Beauty Bubble,” an American-made documentary that chronicles a year in the life of Jeff Hafler, the gay owner of a roadside attraction of hair artifacts in California; “Laika & Nemo,” a German stop-motion animated work about a boy in a diving suit who meets an astronaut; and “Legend: Kien-On Zhang,” a Taiwanese documentary that briefly introduces a 78-year-old maker of Hakka lion heads for traditional festivals.
Besides offering cinema aficionados a chance to experience an uncommon movie format, the short films were selected because Steck believed they would better ready the audience of the sort of films they may expect to see later in the festival.
“Obviously, we can”™t show all of it the first night, but we can kind of give people an idea,” Steck said. “You will see things here that you won”™t have the opportunity to see anywhere else.”
YoFi Fest aims to present films that may differ from one”™s lived experiences in addition to showcasing films that are unorthodox in a technical sense. The “Around the Globe” showcase on Dec. 5 offers films curated from 31 countries including Australia, Turkey and Sweden. Some of the short films set to be showcased are “Monster Heart,” “ToporzeÅ‚” and “Wake Up the City.”
There will be a slew of themed showcases of short films, with the occasional feature-length film in between, totaling over 140 films by the end of the festival. Besides foreign films, YoFi Fest will also offer a voice to the LGBTQ+ community with the “Queer Screen” showcase on Dec. 6 and celebrate the empowerment of women with a “Ladies Night” showcase the following day.
One of Steck”™s hopes is for individuals to find common ground in stories, which depict different cultures.
“A lot of these stories are very similar. They”™re very universal. Coming of age stories, leaving your family, choosing between work/life balance ”” these are all universal stories,” Steck said. “The backdrop changes, whether you”™re working on Wall Street or you”™re working in a field somewhere in Norway ”” it”™s very different. But the feelings that we have about work, about life, about family, about love, it”™s very universal and to see it expressed that way, I think it has been very powerful.”
In a replay of the 2021 structure, this year”™s film festival will also be available as a hybrid experience. Moviegoers have the option to stream the films and watch simultaneously with in-person audiences, allowing people interested in joining but unable to travel to watch along with the in-person audience.
YoFi Fest”™s first foray into virtual presentation began 2020, a result of the pandemic lockdowns forcing the organization”™s hand. Unlike the hybrid model of succeeding years, the 2020 festival was fully remote, which proved to be daunting for the team.
“Every program had to be both accessible to an audience easily, but also secure so the filmmaker”™s work is protected and the IP isn”™t in danger of being pirated,” Steck said, noting it was “difficult to make something accessible but also inaccessible, to make something easy to watch but also behind some sort of paywall.”
While online viewing may be an option, Steck maintains that Yonkers Film Festival remains a communal experience first and foremost.
“We don”™t want to be Netflix, we don”™t want to be Amazon or Hulu ”” we”™re a film festival, so we want to promote conversations between filmmakers and the audience, between filmmakers and filmmakers, and between film fans and film fans,” he said,
Virtual attendance will also benefit filmmakers and enrich the audience experience. Far-flung creators, sometimes in different countries in the case of foreign film submissions, may now join remotely to interact with moviegoers during Q&A sessions. According to Steck, about 90% of filmmakers now join the conversation as compared to around 50% in previous years.
“We still believe in that communal watching experience. We wanted to preserve that so that we are all watching it simultaneously, even if we”™re not in the same room,” Steck said. “That”™s where we really were unique last year, and we”™ve built upon that point of difference for this year.”
